Traveling

We left our house on Saturday afternoon, June 19 and headed to Medford, OR to stay overnight with Greg's parents. This was the start of our 17-day vacation. We got there in the evening and had a late dinner with them before getting the kids to bed.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Greg spent Sunday (Father's Day) golfing with his Dad and trying to change a tire. The golfing part was fun, but the tire part, not so much! That added some unnecessary stress to our day and we had a long drive to Portland that evening.

We got to Portland Sunday night and checked into our hotel. We were very happy they gave us a free upgrade on our room. We ended up with quite a large room which gave us lots of room for all our stuff as well as Greg's bike with room to spare.

Our large hotel room in Portland made it nice to spread our stuff out


We spent two nights in Portland. Greg had to work there on Monday and Tuesday. Since my sister lives there, I was able to have lunch with her on Monday, along with my niece, her friend, and my boys. The kids were so tired due to the long hours in the car and not enough sleep at night and poor Caden fell asleep in the highchair at the restaurant. It was adorable and sad all at the same time!

Caden asleep at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Clackamas


On Tuesday morning, the plan was for me to drive by myself with the boys to Spokane and Coeur d'Alene while Greg stayed in Portland and worked that day. He was flying into Spokane that night. I was really dreading that part of the trip for me. The kids were exhausted and tired of being in the car for such long hours and I knew it would be 6 hours of whining and crying which wasn't exactly appealing to me.

Greg had a brilliant idea though! Fly my niece, Melissa, from Spokane to Portland and have her drive back with me. We had a free ticket that was going to expire at the end of that week anyway. Melissa is 13 years old and has traveled around the world with her family so she's comfortable on an airplane, although this was her first solo flight and she was a little nervous about that. But she did wonderfully traveling on her own.

So Tuesday morning, I dropped Greg off for work and then I headed to the airport to pick up Melissa. Her flight landed at 8:45 am. As soon as I picked her up, we hit the road driving back to Spokane. Having her in the car with me made the whole trip so much less stressful! She is great with kids and helped entertain Kyler. She was able to stay in the car with Caden while I took Kyler for potty breaks, etc. And when we stopped for lunch, she could help with the kids while I ordered food, etc. I was so incredibly grateful for her help! I don't think she realizes how much help she really was.

Me and my beautiful niece, Melissa!


My brother-in-law graciously picked Greg up at the airport Tuesday night and drove him over to my parent's house so I didn't have to keep the boys up so late and pick him up myself. Then the next few days were primarily spent in preparation for Greg's Ironman Triathlon in Coeur d'Alene on Sunday, June 27.

After arriving in Coeur d'Alene, we have spent lots of time with family and friends. Some of our closest friends from the Sacramento area drove all the way up to Cd'A to support Greg and cheer him on. We also have some friends who live in Spokane who used to live near us and attend church with us. So all of us got together for lunch on Friday in order to catch up. In addition, we had some good friends from Boise drive up and stay with us from Thursday night until Sunday. We are so blessed to have such incredible friends willing to drive long distances to see us and especially support Greg in the Ironman.

L-R: Ryan, Suzanne & Ellie Standish from Sacramento, Greg & Carey, and Scott & Heidi Maloney from Spokane

Our friends from Boise: Jubilee, Sharla, Randy & Piper Jamison


Saturday Greg had to drop off his bags of items for his transitions from swim to bike, and bike to run, etc. And, he had to drop off his bike. There was probably over 1 million dollars worth of bikes there and they had tight security to watch them overnight to ensure nothing happened to them. We spent lots of time with family and friends on Saturday afternoon as well. Then it was early to bed as we all had to get up at 4 am to get ready for the Ironman.

Sunday was a crazy day but that requires it's own post. We all survived, Greg in particular, and were happy when Monday rolled around. This week we have spent relaxing a bit more and tomorrow we leave to drive to Seattle to get ready for Greg's sister's wedding on Sunday, July 4. This is supposed to be our vacation, but it sure has been busy!